Dave Deluca.

Again, this is how I believe Code Enforcement is used by Whitehall City Hall, in part. It is used as a weapon against:

• The fearful and timid
• The poor
• Those ignorant of law

  This is done to:

• “Make the city look nice”
• exert Authoritarian control
• Chase out ‘undesirables’

It is hostile to:

• Freedom and Liberty…

…which disrespects veterans and dishonors their service and sacrifice.

There it is, all lined up from A to Z. Now lets look at them and also I want to offer some heinous examples of all this.

• I heard from a timid elderly lady who code enforcement wanted a couch off her front porch. At some point she’d had it moved to her back porch, code enforcement saw it there and simply took it away, without due process. She told me her story, I sat with her in her living room on Ural Avenue, and although she told it to me, she didn’t want to be filmed. She was afraid it would get back to her with ramped up code enforcement. This is a fear I’ve heard too often from the citizens. This lady didn’t know her rights, didn’t have the money for an attorney and was afraid of their authority and was too timid to fight them. All of that right there in the first 3 lines.
• In the building codes, it gives exacting measurements about fences;

“Fences in front yards in any residential or apartment district shall not be more than fifty percent (50%) opaque, when viewed at right angles of the vertical plane (the area within a rectangular outline enclosing all parts of the fence in its vertical plane). Match this with an exact quote from Mayor Maggard on code enforcement’s ‘rights’; “We don’t look over a solid fence (no such thing allowed in Whitehall) but if we can see through it or our employees can see through it, they can take pictures. If its visible to the naked eye and there is no…” “…if anything on a property is visible to the naked eye we can write a citation or a violation, we don’t even have to come onto the property, we can see it from there.”

Code enforcement compiling photographic evidence of the property right behind Family Video from the vacant property next to it. This is SNOOPING, it is SPYING, it is IMMORAL.

Isn’t this convenient. The city insists the citizens fences have spaces in them and yet, the city itself uses that very code for its advantage to spy on the citizens. They don’t respect our right to privacy. They take advantage of that code’s specs to immorally write violations for the citizens. Doesn’t our putting up fences in the first place state an unspoken desire for people to leave us alone? Why doesn’t the city respect that?

• A few years back I got to talking with a couple who live on Simpson Drive. They told me how code enforcement had taken photos of their backyard over their privacy fence from a bucket truck (!). At first the city denied it but once photos were proffered they said that while the code officer was in Dick Masheter’s parking lot there had been an AEP truck doing work and saw code enforcement. They offered to take pictures of the backyard for code enforcement and so they did. Were this outlandish story even true, what are the morals of a city officer who would even allow such a thing? Beyond belief!
• After both elderly parents passed away (The father a resident of Whitehall for 87 years) the youngest daughter was put in charge of the property, which included the house. At some point it was in need of a paint job and code enforcement alerted them to this. Because of snafus of communication in the family, the daughter was not alerted to the paint situation rising to a violation which she had to appear in Mayor’s Court for. As a result of her non-appearance then, a warrant was issued for her arrest. While driving in Westerville one day she was stopped by a police officer for something or other and it was found she had an outstanding warrant in Whitehall. She was cuffed right there by the side of the road and put into the patrol car (Had never been arrested or anything in 40-some years of life) and driven to Whitehall where she was handed off to another police officer. All this because of peeling paint. Good and decent citizens treated like dirty criminals because of weeds and paint. Despicable.
• In 2008, Code Enforcement stepped 54 feet onto my property, above the top of the driveway to turn around and take photos of my brother’s cars which were in need of new registration. I had purchased my childhood home 5 months before and was wrapping up things in NYC before my return. I was never asked permission and there was no warrant issued for his search which resulted in a violation which pulled me into court. I hadn’t even returned yet to start my intended rehab of my childhood home and already they were hounding me. *As a sidenote, when I asked for my code enforcement file a couple years later, in it there was a copy from a Dispatch article in which I’d commented negatively on code enforcement thereby making it, not my Code file but rather, a political dossier.
• There is a gentleman who lives in Whitehall who has six kids, works to pay his bills and is not on assistance. He is the third generation of his family who has lived in the house. Granted, they’re not the cleanest or most orderly family in the neighborhood but, they never were. I’ve known the family 50 years and they’ve always been this way. They lived in the neighborhood and that’s the way its always been. Decent people though. His Grandparents were very civic-minded and active in the local church. Code enforcement has been after them for some time, both this gentleman and his father before him. Recently code had stepped up their efforts against this Whitehall family who’ve lived in their house 65 years. He told me that they started issuing warning after warning after violation after violation. Just as he thought he’d complied, they bothered him with more and when those had been attended to they continued to nickle and dime him. He said they wanted to take his house. They said he wasn’t doing enough and so took him to court where they actually tried to seize his property claiming he was a public nuisance with so many code violations. (Mayor Kim Maggard’s War On Blight!!! War on Children!!! War on self-sustaining members of society!!! War On Long-Time Residents!!! War On People’s Personal Property!!! War On Morality!!! War On Sense and Reason!!! If this sounds familiar, see my pieces on Woodcliff.) Instead he was put on ‘probation’ (!) which meant that if he got one code violation in a year, he would be sent to jail for 30 days. Lo and behold he was given a violation for weeds behind his garage (how they saw them behind his garage is yours and my best guess)and a warrant for his arrest was issued. He says they stalked his house to find and arrest him, this in the same week that the three people were murdered here in Whitehall. He was able to avoid them and got an attorney and with that got the warrant lifted to fix the problem but is still under probation. For weeds.

I ask you then, what is the aim of a government that hounds long-time residents to the point of throwing them in jail for grass and weeds? A city which values property over the people who make up the community, pushing longtime citizens around and making ordinary, hard-working citizens into criminals over grass and weeds? Would Whitehall be better off if the breadwinner of this family were thrown in jail and his kids made to fend for themselves and have to find either public assistance, food stamps or foster homes? Apparently the value of property has taken precedence over the value of humans. Screw his kids, screw regular people trying not to be on assistance. Screw simple common decency. Everything about their actions say how completely awful they are. Is taking his kids away from him the next step? Shall he end his families long-term investment in this community (that which Whitehall sees as no more important than a rotting banana peel) move out and rent his house out? Both I and he feel they’re trying to chase out blue collar people (‘undesireables’, as mentioned above, who aren’t very ‘Upper Arlington’, as per Mayor Wolfe’s dreamscape) and, as this gentleman says, “for who and for what?” Whitehall was and is a blue collar town, hard-working families who are the backbone of our community. What are we replacing them with, Section 8 and HUD housing? Has Mayor Maggard completely lost her mind along with her scruples, trust, common decency and sense?! Does this gentleman not represent the kind of Whitehall that Mayor Maggard apparently aspires for us? Her inorganic, punitive, crushing, authoritarian drive to create a Whitehall that exists in her mind but doesn’t in actuality? This is exactly why code enforcement needs to be re-evaluated in Whitehall and doubly shameful that your representatives on council (with the exception of Leslie LaCorte)won’t do that (see my next post), because it doesn’t align with what their friend and donor, Kim Maggard wants, despite it being so reprehensible to those citizens they’re supposed to be representing. I’ve gotta say it, I’ve been avoiding it but it is an excellent word and one someone must say. Even at the cost to my attaining office….Bullshit! Every sense I have and was raised with and that I’ve fought against and have honed a sense about, tells me that this screams…bullshit. If you don’t like the word or think its offensive a candidate for city office would use a word like this, then I ask you; what is more offensive, the word ‘bullshit’ when used appropriately or a city government that would send a working father of six to jail for grass and weeds? If the word bullshit is your answer then you are part of the problem that exists here in Whitehall and certainly not the solution.

• The final heinous example belongs to Mr. David Deluca. Granted, he left during the Wolfe administration but his is a ripe example of the abuse code enforcement heaps on some people that can be called by only one word, and that is harrassment. I can’t address it all here because time has become constricting but suffice it to say that Mr. Deluca was also deemed ‘undesireable’ by those down at City Hall.

‘Jesus’ by Dave Deluca made with cast off materials.

A Beauty salon chair Dave rehabbed and gave to me as a gift.

Code enforcement photo taken while in Dave’s backyard.

Photo taken over back gate marked with a ‘No Trespassing’ sign into his backyard to show ‘violations’. Note the marked infractions.

Photo taken at the threshold of Dave’s enclosed front porch. Apparently ‘cardboard’ is a severe enough infraction to cause further misery to an older veteran on a fixed income who eats peanut butter and crackers for dinner.

Dave’s artificial flowers. Again, code enforcement cracking down on senior citizens fouling the neighborhoods of Whitehall with their tacky, subversive and cheap artificial flowers. Seeing this, its understandable why they drove Dave Deluca out on a rail.

      Dave was a senior citizen and Vietnam veteran as well as an artist. He made extra money salvaging cast off items which he would then rehab and sell to supplement his small income. Again, not on assistance, except what was his as a senior citizen or veteran. In this pursuit he accumulated a lot of things which became visible to the city. Mr. Deluca alleged to have had words with the then Service Director Ray Ogden one early Mother’s Day Sunday. Mr. Ogden was in his personal vehicle without identification or a uniform and stopped to tell Mr. Deluca he couldn’t put up a lattice against a post in his front yard that he was trying to train vines on. Words were exchanged including choice words for Mr. Ogden from Mr.Deluca and Dave felt that’s where his troubles began. (He alleged that Mr. Ogden told him that Whitehall would be a better place without him in it) Seemingly like no other citizen, the code violations piled up. Mr. Deluca had little income to fight them and had to rely on court-appointed attorneys. Occasionally I made him dinner, particularly when I found out he could afford no better than peanut butter and crackers for dinner. No one seemed to listen or care that the code officers were trespassing on his property without permission or a warrant or they snapped photos from his neighbors roof into his backyard. Code Officer Walt Sural would take photos of his enclosed front porch by walking up his driveway to it and taking them from the open threshhold. I was at an on-site (hearing?) that included Judge Harland Hale when Mr. Sural admitted as much. Code took photos over a fence gate clearly marked with a ‘No trespassing’ sign into his backyard to note infractions. What this ultimately all did was wear Mr. Deluca down to where he finally left, depressed and disillusioned, to live with his sister in Florida. (to City Hall’s delight no doubt). He left in 2010. When I was trying to defend him in online posts before then, some anonymous wag suggested I go live under a bridge with Mr. Deluca. Not have sympathy for the man or appreciate I took my personal time to help him but only snotty derision for the both of us. It was saddening and disgusting how some people would defend the inappropriate and inhuman actions of those at City Hall here in my own hometown.

Here was a man who’d served his country with honor, ostensibly for freedom and liberty, those values and rights which those at City Hall enjoyed due to his sacrifices, then using the law to take those very things away from him. It is the ultimate disgusting, traitorous behavior and every decent American should be as equally appalled by their actions and behavior as I am. To call for and demand support of our armed forces and then not see these actions as non-supportive and traitorous to troops that they are, is to have an utter disconnect to what it is you’re purporting to support. It cannot be. Support is support is support and what this city did to Mr. Deluca is a stain on our service men and women and Whitehall itself. Without question.

Here’s the thing then; the police department is hired to drive up and down our streets looking for crime and criminals, that which we all desire and support, ‘we’ being the non-criminals. Now, imagine that there is another group of officers employed by the city who, unlike the police which are part of the safety department, do their job but which are part of the service department. Service, not safety and yet, the code officers have the ability to issue violations and take you into court and have you thrown in jail. Also, what does it feel like to be in your house or yard and have a city truck with a man with a uniform and a badge drive by your house several times a day. To me they’re just like police but this time they’re like City Hall’s police. Whereas the regular police are there for us, code enforcement are there for the city. Wolfe’s police and Maggard’s police. They’re watching you. Did you trim that bush Mr. Dixon? I see leaves in your gutter! That vehicle’s registration has expired! Are those artificial flowers Mr. Dixon? Did you say something negative about code enforcement in the paper? We’re going to have to put a copy of that article in your ‘file’.

What happens if they don’t ‘like’ you, what if the mayor or someone else in city hall doesn’t like you or holds political grudges? Can you trust them not to use code enforcement as a political tool when they can’t mind conflicts of interest that build public trust in the first place? (I say no) Does it feel like harassment after awhile or you think, ‘Oh my God, is everything okay, did I take care of everything? Are they coming for me? Will they find something and take money from my pockets, take me to court? And…will you get treated reasonably and fairly? ( I say no to that too) While Mr. Deluca was given a violation for, among other things, artificial flowers, everyone else in Whitehall, which included that which ringed the gazebo on city owned property, continued to have artificial flowers, some up to the present day. When so much attention is paid to Mr. Deluca but the same is not paid to others with the same infraction, that is not equal protection under the law. Unfortunately for Mr. Deluca, Code seemingly didn’t notice all the others. As well, when I was vocal in my opposition with code enforcement back in ’09, I didn’t hear anything from them in their efforts to get me to deal with my house getting painted (despite my waiting for MORPC (the Mid Ohio regional Planning Commission) and starting the job myself). Finally though, I did get a violation in the mail asking me into court, (where I was spoken harshly to by the prosecutor for Whitehall like I was a miscreant dog and scofflaw instead of the decent, hard-working, home-owning taxpaying citizen that I am.) that which was written on, of all days, election day, sadly for me, too late to make a public fuss about it. Very telling that whatever problem they had with me could only have reached its apex of alarm and pique on election day itself. This ultimately shows then how they use code enforcement as a political tool, all so their butts wouldn’t be called out before the election and maybe cost them votes. It is both disgusting and dangerous. Everything I listed at the top of this page is true. As well, it must be stated, that without an acceptable moral code, code enforcement is just a political tool used to manipulate the citizenry. There are many instances where sense and reason and basic morals siad that doing what you were going to do, while available to you, would be immoral to do (bucket trucks, artificial flowers, etc) but…they did them anyway because the code is more important than the citizens themselves, its more important than decency and morals. Those things MUST take a backseat when forcing code infractions on the citizens (and more importantly) people that don’t fit into what our notions of the city should be.

Granted, there may be ordinary uses regarding code infractions but there have been too many stories of its abuse of the citizens to ignore and remain silent over, despite its efforts which may have benefited situations with yourselves. Because, while it may spruce up your neighborhood or improve your property values, it undermines personal liberty and freedoms and immorally attacks and degrades human’s experience and the Constitutionally-guaranteed happiness given us by God himself. All for the sake of aesthetics.

I have simply heard too many citizens, wary of code enforcement, tell me their stories, afraid to go public for fear of retaliation by city hall. If code is abused by the city against its citizens in whatever form or means, that is wrong. If there is a good and decent reason to enforce codes and it is done respectfully towards the citizens then that is fine. I claim it is awful people who have gotten into office and abused it for their selfish needs, wants and gains to the detriment of the citizens, their organic lives here in Whitehall and most egregiously, the U.S. Constitution and the law. The very people who enforce the law and have the power to fine you and send you to jail, they themselves, break it. It is not only unlawful and despicable but it is completely unacceptable. They need to be booted out of office…pronto!